Promotion: Mother is a Bitch, artist book by Šejla Kamerić

The friendly collaboration between KRIK – Festival for Critical Culture, Festival for Feminist Culture and Action – FIRSTBORN GIRL and the artist Šejla Kamerić continues with the presentation of the art book “Mother is a bitch” by Šejla Kamerić and friends – for Kamerić, the most important thing is the weaving of friendship networks and narratives that create an atmosphere of protection and mutual support.

The promotion will start at 19:30 with a conversation between the artist Šejla Kamerić, the editor Ziva Kleindiens, as well as the participants Jasmina and Milica Radulović. The moderator of the conversation will be Jovanka Popova.

On Selfhood, Memory, and … Laughter

Over the past 25 years, Šejla Kamerić (b. Sarajevo 1976; lives and works in Sarajevo, Berlin, and Istria) has produced a remarkable number of art works based on the self-presentational gestures. They reveal Kamerić’s enduring allegiance to the subject of self-portraiture and her unconventional comprehension of this self-referential practice.
Mother is a bitch brings together texts and images that reflect on Kamerić’s multifaceted practice following two main lines within her body of work: self-portraits and textile works. These artworks are based on Kamerić’s own experiences, memories and dreams and take us to global spaces of displacement and discrimination. They are viewed through the lenses of gender, labor, migration, class, and care, imbued with interweaving temporalities—past and present.
Inspired by Hélène Cixous’ écriture feminine or “women’s writing”—a theory of feminist philosophy that combines elements of psychoanalysis, literary theory, and deconstructivism, the authors of the publication consider acts of writing as a subversion of patriarchal orders.The commissioned texts are juxtaposed with one another and with reproductions of Kamerić’s works, negotiating themes such as witchcraft, feminism, self-reflection, self-exploration, and self-exploitation. With contributions by Hana Ćurak, Iskra Geshoska, Jana Kocevska, Edi Muka, Natalija Paunić, Linda Peitz, Bojana Pejić, Nicola Petek, Magdalena Radomska, Milica Radulović, Mathilde Sandlarz, Milica Trakilović, Adriana Tranca and Jasmina Tumbas, edited by Živa Kleindienst.

The team of CRIC – festival for critical culture is: Iskra Geshoska, Artan Sadiku, Tijana Ana, Petar Milat, Stanimir Panayotov, Natasha Geleva, Gjorge Jovanovic. Public relations at the festival: Aleksandra Bubevska.

FIRSTBORN GIRL feminist festival team: Jana Kocevska, Jana Stardelova, Kristina Lelovac, Slavica Kjurcinska, Elizabeta Poljoska, Julijana Mladenovska, Dzemiliana Abdulova, Georgi Stardelov and Dino Milosavljevic.

Permanent strategic partners of Kontrapunkt and KRIK are: MaMa (https://www.mi2.hr/en/) from Zagreb, kuda.org (https://kuda.org/) from Novi Sad, and Kulturtreger from Zagreb.
Special thanks to KOMA (@koma.mk) graphic design studio.
The event is realized in cooperation with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje.

Kontrapunkt and CRIC Festival are supported by the Ministry of Culture of North Macedonia, Goethe Institute, the European Union through Creative Europe Projects Re-Imagine Europe and Peripheral Visions.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

FIRSTBORN GIRL feminist festival is supported by: Sigrid Rausing Trust, Sweden and The Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, Equality Fund and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia.